Reading: Suicide, Love, Incest

Grabby blog post title, right? These are all elements in Banana Yoshimoto’s NP, but they’re not what the book is about. Sorry for the bait and switch. The book is actually about welcoming a dark force into your life. Our narrator, Kazami, sidesteps a darkness bubbling from within to face one that comes crashing into her life in the form of the novel’s true protagonist—Sui.

The title, NP refers to a fictional book of 97 short stories written in English by Sarao Takase, a fictional Japanese author. A cancer of sorts, the book infects all those who become emotionally invested in its language with an urge to take their lives. First, it claims Takase himself, then Kazami’s boyfriend Shoji, who found a haunting 98^th story and attempts to translate it from English to Japanese. Years later, now a translator herself, Kazami describes the brief time she approached translating "NP" soon after Shoji’s demise, “It felt like walking out into the ocean with your clothes on, the waves pounding into your body, and swimming out toward the horizon with nothing holding you back.” This visceral image is typical of Yoshimoto. The author spends most of the time using minimalist language and dialogue to convey tension and emotion. Saving powerful imagery and symbolism for surprising moments which resonate for long after you turn the page. This linguistic contrast creates a stark demarcation that can be jarring for some, but I found it incredibly moving and beautiful. The fleeting moments of literary descriptions made that much more precious and exceptional.

Kazami is pulled into Sui’s orbit—the word orbit is appropriate as Sui wields a gravitational pull to rival any planet—when she starts spending time with Takase’s adult children, Saki and Otohiko. She delights in Saki’s company, who is lighthearted and youthful, the perfect summertime companion. And as the plot unfurls over a single summer, Kazami becomes further embroiled in the tense and complicated relationships between the siblings and Sui. The darkness first manifested in Takase firmly clutches at both Otohiko and Sui, who are not only related but also romantically linked.

Yoshimoto manages to explore different types of female friendships, romantic affairs, father-daughter and mother-daughter relationships.

The author subverts expectations by setting this tale of unorthodoxy, curses, and suicide in the summer.  But the season is a perfect foil, underpinning the growing uneasiness and leading up to the difficult climax with oppressive heat and unexpected rain respectively. Yoshimoto sprinkles concise descriptions to communicate the feeling, “It was that time of day when the hazy blue sky starts to inhale the heat of the day.” She achieves the balance of sensory cues with uninterrupted forward motion.

The instances of incest in NP are not subtle and they play an important part in creating characters who are deeply human in their flaws. Also, the consensual nature of the relationships, both involving Sui, informs a larger narrative about women and their bonds. In the small universe of this book (really only four characters), Yoshimoto manages to explore different types of female friendships, romantic affairs, father-daughter and mother-daughter relationships. And all in under 200 pages. I consider that impressive.

Sui has all the makings of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, her appearances, and manners almost otherworldly in nature.

“Her gaze was absolutely pure and transparent, like Sirius sparkling high up in the dark night sky, like a good dry martini beaming with pure light inside a cocktail glass.”

“I was gripped with fear when I saw those eyes—the eyes of a newborn on the face of an adult.”

However, she is a fully formed protagonist with desires, fears, and conflicts of her own. We the reader get to experience it through Kazami who is at once attracted to and afraid of Sui. Yoshimoto also scores extra brownie points with me by favorably comparing the main character to my beverage of choice.

All in all, NP is not a hard book to read, but it is challenging. It will challenge your expectations, push you to judgments you will quickly abandon, and force you to contend with unpleasant truths. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a good time to me. In fact, I can assert it was a fantastically good time.